It is impossible for people to be without bias and such bias always leads to the filtering of data and information which can skew ones views and lead them to coming to the same options as the teacher. This concept has been proven through hoaxes such as this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax. Furthermore, bias is known to prevent us from being able to accept certain interpretations of data as 'acceptable truth'.
It is unavoidable. While scientists are a group of individuals who are most likely to be objective, they cannot escape their humanity. It is unfortunate that it is easier to see others bias than it is our own. It is easier for right to see the bias of the academia than it is to see their own.
Well, I agree with you on the bias part. I don't really see how the dihydrogen monoxide hoax reinforces that notion though. That actually plays to the topic of this thread by illustrating how scientifically illiterate people tend to be and it may also reinforce the notion that if people were better educated they might consequently lean more left rather than the notion that academia causes people to politically lean left as I stated earlier by referring to your argument as post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning.
I think a more illustrative point that you might have wanted to make would be to refer to the
Sokal hoax. This also illustrates divisions within academia between the hard sciences and the liberal arts. To generalize such issues to the whole of academia and science in general is fairly disingenuous though.
The purpose of news is to provide accurate and unbiased summaries of information so that we can make educated decisions and come to substantiated conclusions of our own.
People of the many and various specializations do not have the knowledge and ability or time to read scientific peer-reviewed academic journals.
As I just said though, I agree with your stance towards human bias. I find it strangely ironic that you don't consistently apply it towards the news as you apparently do to science/academia. The purpose of news is to sell the news. They are a business. In a perfect world, perhaps you'd be right, but that's not how it is.
You seem to have forgotten the influence of sensationalism and yellow journalism. One of the greatest films ever made,
Citizen Kane by Orson Welles, made reference to the life and times of the newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst, and how he used his influence for his own personal gain. If you've seen it (and possibly missed it), Kane utters his iconic phrase "Rosebud" as he lay dying....alone. Nobody heard him say it and so nobody could know he said it as he died.
Similarly, the historical event that led to Orson Welles becoming infamous and garnering him absolute control over making the film was the 1938 broadcast of
The War of the Worlds that supposedly led to mass hysteria....as reported in the news. Unfortunately, public records such as police reports and hospital emergency records don't exactly corroborate such a hysteria.
I think a more fair assessment is that the newspaper industry felt threatened by radio usurping its role as the broadcasting medium of choice and tried to discredit it, yet for an entertainer such as Orson Welles this only helped him gain notoriety and he himself played into it (this is why he has sometimes said that
Citizen Kane is as much about him as it is about Hearst.)
Journalism today (and all printed mediums) are in dire straights given the rise of the internet as the broadcasting forum of choice. They exaggerate and sensationalize the news to gain viewers as does the news on the internet in the form of 'click-bait' headlines and articles.
This isn't anything new though:
“If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.”
― Mark Twain
“Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets..”
― Napoléon Bonaparte
“The best fiction is far more true than any journalism.”
― William Faulkner
